Google Releases Java-to-Objective-C Translator

The new tool could make it easier for Java developers to break into mobile development.

by DevX.com Staff

Sep 18, 2012

Google has released a pair of new development tools. The first and most noteworthy is a new Java-to-Objective-C translation tool that will make it possible to write iOS apps in Java. "J2ObjC is not a Java emulator but instead converts Java classes to Objective-C classes that directly use the iOS Foundation Framework," explained Google's Tom Ball. "It supports the full Java 6 language and most of its runtime features that are required by client-side application developers, including exceptions, inner and anonymous classes, generic types, threads, and reflection. JUnit test translation and execution is also supported. J2ObjC can be used with most build tools, including Xcode and Make."

The company also released a Python Client Library for Google APIs, which includes an OAuth client library. Google's Joe Gregorio and Antonio Fuentes blogged, "If you are building a Python application that uses Google APIs, we strongly recommend you use this client library. First, the library makes it simple to call any RESTful Google API and grab the data returned by the call. Also, the client library handles the OAuth 2.0 authentication protocol and all errors for you without the need to write any additional code."